


Beauty in Incongruity

by merle_p



Category: The Accountant (2016)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Codependency, Dysfunctional Family, Happy Ending, Horny Teenagers, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Reunion Sex, Reunions, Sibling Incest, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:06:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25789303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merle_p/pseuds/merle_p
Summary: “Well,” she says, “I did always think he was rather good-looking.”Chris freezes, his finger hovering over the keypad.“I have no idea what you are talking about.”“Oh sweetheart,” she says, and even though he knows that her voice is computer-generated and devoid of any real inflection, he cannot quite shake the feeling that she is mocking him.
Relationships: Braxton/Christian Wolff
Comments: 11
Kudos: 42
Collections: Limited Theatrical Release 2020





	Beauty in Incongruity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spock/gifts).



> “I like _Dogs Playing Poker_. Because dogs would never bet on things, and so, it’s incongruous. I like incongruity.” (Christian Wolff)

Chris catches up with Braxton outside of Savannah six days after shooting Lamar Blackburn in the head. He had told Braxton he would meet him in a week, and if his brother remembers anything about Chris’ stance on punctuality, he will know to expect him tomorrow. But it doesn’t hurt to have an extra day to explore the territory and prepare – even if Chris isn’t entirely sure what exactly he is preparing for.

Justine calls him as he is climbing out of his truck in the long, hidden driveway behind the safehouse she set up for him.

“That was quite the mess you two left for me to clean up,” she says, in lieu of a greeting.

“Sorry,” he says automatically, switches the phone to his left hand, and presses the key fob for the car with the thumb of his right.

“No, you are not,” she responds, and smoothly continues: “Braxton’s presence has been erased from the scene.” She pauses briefly. “I retroactively awarded the role of team leader to one of his dead operatives. I could have wiped his persona too, but I didn’t want to eclipse his professional identity without his consent.”

Chris has an inkling that there won’t be much of that persona to salvage, but he appreciates Justine reminding him that it’s not his choice to make.

“Thank you,” he says and starts to walk the perimeter, a quick check for intruders, cameras, or traps. Justine is always on top of her research, but he didn’t survive for as long as he did by letting down his guard. Besides, it’s a comforting exercise.

If she knows what he’s doing, she doesn’t bring it up. “Dana is looking for you,” she says instead. “Seems like she appreciated the Pollock.”

He comes to a stop, then starts walking again. “And?”

“And she has no idea what she’s doing so there’s no chance she will be on your trail.” A pause. “I just wanted to let you know. You seemed quite fond of her.”

He doesn’t really know what to do with that, so instead he checks the fuse box on the backside of the house. Predictably, all the fuses seem to be in perfect shape.

“She didn’t deserve to die,” he says once he is satisfied. “And she deserved to be happy. Now she can be.”

“So you don’t want me to put you in touch with her,” Justine says, after another uncharacteristic silence.

“No,” he says, and steps onto the front porch of the house at last.

“Because you are going to see your brother.”

“Yes.”

“Well,” she says, “I did always think he was rather good-looking.”

Chris freezes, his finger hovering over the keypad.

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Oh sweetheart,” she says, and even though he knows that her voice is computer-generated and devoid of any real inflection, he cannot quite shake the feeling that she is mocking him.

Growing up, Braxton was always the pretty one. Christian knew this because many people said so. When they were young, strangers would compliment their parents on having such a handsome son, and then their eyes would glide over Chris in an awkward moment of silence, and eventually Chris understood this to mean that when they were looking at him, they didn’t have anything nice to say.

When Braxton was fifteen, he started sneaking out of the house to meet a boy named Manuel, the son of their housekeeper’s cousin in San Salvador. Their father, when he found out, beat his wayward son black and blue, and then grounded him for the rest of their stay in El Salvador, short as it was.

As far as Chris was aware, Braxton never saw Manuel again, and although Chris didn’t wish the other boy any ill, he couldn’t say that he was particularly sorry about that part.

He did feel sorry for Braxton, who couldn’t sleep on his back for a week, and who after three days of being locked up inside was already climbing the walls of their small apartment, all simmering anger and pent-up energy.

“I could do that for you,” Chris eventually said one night, after lying awake for one hour and fifteen minutes and listening to Braxton toss and turn in the dark.

Braxton’s movements stilled, the only sign that he had heard what Christian had said.

“What?” he finally said after a long heavy pause, and Christian stared up at the ceiling, his fingers tapping against the mattress, one two three four.

“Sex,” he said once he made it to forty-four. “Whatever you were doing with him.”

He heard Braxton roll over onto his side to look at him, and waited for an answer that wasn’t coming.

His fingers kept tapping the mattress. “You wouldn’t need to go out anymore,” he said. “Pop wouldn’t have to find out. You could pretend to be normal.”

Braxton made a weird sound at that, hovering somewhere between a laugh and a sob. Chris forced his hands to lie flat on the sheet, and then carefully turned his head to look at his brother.

In the dim light of the streetlamps outside their window, he saw Braxton staring at him with an expression he couldn’t even begin to decipher.

“You are crazy,” his brother finally said, shaking his head.

“You knew that already,” Chris replied, and for some reason that made Braxton laugh so hard that the bed was shaking with it.

“Point taken,” he said, sounding more like himself than he had all week, and then he turned his back to Chris and fell asleep.

Braxton shows up at the safehouse at noon the next day, in jeans and on foot, carrying a simple black duffel bag. Justine was supposed to call him with instructions at eleven sharp, and the drive is at least half an hour, so Chris knows his brother must have been waiting for him to make contact, ready to go.

Justine had advised against bringing Braxton to the safehouse, had instead suggested that Chris should meet him in his room at the nondescript motel just off I-95. Chris had disagreed, arguing that there was no way of knowing whether they would end up fighting again. Motel walls tended to be thin, they were both meant to lie low, and crashing some hapless couple’s getaway by literally falling through the wall would likely interfere with that particular goal.

The pregnant pause following his explanation indicated that Justine didn’t entirely believe him, but it wasn’t exactly a lie. It just also wasn’t the entire truth. Although Braxton had probably walked away from their chance encounter wondering how much Christian even cared about him, fact was that Chris had absolutely not been prepared for whatever feelings seeing his brother had stirred up in him. Even now, the thought of meeting him again makes him feel unbalanced, off-kilter, and he prefers to do it on his own turf, even if it’s an unnecessarily luxurious safehouse he only moved into yesterday.

“Nice place you got here,” Braxton now says, standing in the middle of the ridiculously spacious entrance hall with the mounted deer heads, hands in his pockets, duffel bag at his feet.

Chris is about to point out, inanely, that the house is not really his, when it occurs to him that Braxton is being sarcastic, and what it is he is referring to.

“Upstairs is better,” he says, and that earns him a lopsided little smile.

“No dead animals?” Braxton asks.

“No dead animals,” Chris confirms, and forces himself to smile back before looking down at the ground.

“You can take the bedroom to the left,” he says. “It has its own bathroom too. You should – you should take your bag upstairs. I am – I need to start making lunch.”

Braxton raises his brows. “So I _am_ staying the night,” he says, and manages to make it sound like a question.

Chris glances up at him without raising his head. “If you want.”

Braxton shrugs, a demonstratively casual move. “I got nowhere else to be,” he says. “And this place definitely beats the shitty motel I was staying in, deer heads or not.”

He slings the bag over his shoulder and makes his way up the stairs, already appearing to be more at ease here than Chris, who’s been in the house all night. Chris stays where he is and stares up at the mounted stag head, not moving until he hears the bedroom door open and fall shut again.

Shortly after the incident with Manuel, their father moved them to South Africa. Chris never was sure whether Braxton’s transgression really had something to do with it, but in his head the two events remained inseparably intertwined.

Pop thought it would be a good idea to take them antelope hunting, presumably as part of his ongoing mission to further toughen up his sons. The sheer prospect sent Chris into a tailspin, and his father predictably responded by pushing harder, until Chris dissolved into a shivering bundle of frayed nerves, on the brink of his first real meltdown in over a year, and even Solomon Grundy didn’t do shit to calm him down.

“No,” Braxton finally said, putting his narrow frame between Chris and his father, arms crossed over his chest. He hadn’t had his major growth spurt yet, so he didn’t look very intimidating bracketed by his older brother and his dad, but the mere display of defiance was shocking enough.

“Don’t you dare question me,” their father growled and pushed the hunting rifle lengthwise into Braxton’s chest, willing his son to reach for the gun.

“Or what, you’ll shoot me?” Braxton said, and there was something dark lurking around the edges of his voice, something mean and dangerous that Chris had never heard before. Their father clearly heard it too, because it was enough to make him back off, even though he refused to talk to them for the rest of the day.

In mutual agreement, none of them ever spoke about the confrontation again, and in the grand scheme of things, it seemed like a minor incident. But it was the first time Braxton stood up directly to their father, and at the time Chris didn’t think there was anything better than the realization that his brother had picked a side and had chosen him.

A year later, they were fucking. Braxton was sixteen and Chris was eighteen, and the older they got, the more paranoid their father became about keeping them close. Each other was all they had: they were around each other 24/7, every minute of each day, and eventually something had to give.

Chris didn’t mind. His entire life he’d been tuned into his brother’s presence, the only person who did not upset his equilibrium simply by being in the same room, and for the past two, three years, all his shameful secret fantasies had been occupied by Braxton as well.

He wasn’t entirely sure about Braxton’s reasons. His brother had other options, that much was clear: boys and girls tended to throw themselves at him equally, and as much as Christian hated it, it wasn’t exactly as if he could blame them for it. He could have asked, and perhaps Braxton would even have answered, but Chris knew there was no guarantee he would like what Braxton had to say, and it wasn’t like knowing would have changed anything for him either way.

By the time Braxton comes back down the stairs, Chris is busy putting together sandwiches at the kitchen counter, taking comfort in the simple, repetitive movements involved in the task: Bread, mayo, ham, provolone, lettuce, bread, apply slight pressure on the top slice, cut into triangles, start the process again.

“There is beer in the fridge,” he says without looking up from his work, and in his periphery sees Braxton approach the refrigerator and open the door.

“You drink?” Braxton asks, a hint of surprise in his voice, and Chris shakes his head at the leaf of lettuce in his hand.

“No,” he says. “I think Justine might have stocked up for you. But you can get me a soda while you are there.”

He hears Braxton pop the lid on a soda can, and then a Sprite appears on the counter next to the sandwich plate, confirmation that Braxton still remembers what he liked fifteen years ago and assumes (correctly) that this hasn’t changed.

Braxton retreats with his beer bottle to the kitchen bar table and lets him work, and Chris is done and washing his hands in the sink when he realizes that Braxton has been silent for a long time.

He carefully dries his hands on a paper towel before he allows himself to look up at him, only to find Braxton staring at him with an odd expression on his face.

“What?” he asks, self-consciously. “Do you not like ham sandwiches anymore?”

For some reason, Braxton seems to find his question highly amusing, but he sobers again quickly and shakes his head. “No, it’s just …” he starts and pulls a shoulder up to his ear. “It’s been ages since someone has made me food like this.”

“Oh,” Chris says. He looks down at the sandwich plate. He looks up at Braxton. “You don’t have a boyfriend then?”

Braxton blinks. He looks a little blindsided, as if he didn’t expect Chris to simply come right out with this, and Chris can’t really blame him: he didn’t mean to say it either.

“Nah,” Braxton finally says lightly, as if the question maybe wasn’t so strange after all, or at least as if he is trying very hard to pretend.

“I’m a professional hitman,” he shrugs. “It’s not exactly the kind of life that’s conducive to a healthy stable relationship.” 

He takes a long drink from his beer, then looks at Chris over the rim of his bottle. “How about you?”

Chris carries the sandwich plate to the table and sits down in the chair across from him.

“I launder mob money,” he says, forcing himself to look at Braxton, before lowering his eyes again. “Not exactly conducive to a healthy stable relationship.”

“Yeah,” Braxton says dryly and reaches for a sandwich. “Sounds about right.”

They eat in what is a more or less companionable silence, and the remainder of the day progresses in much the same way. They set up targets in the field behind the house and end up spending most of the afternoon shooting their rifles, lying next to each other in the grass. When the sun moves closer to the horizon, Chris cooks dinner, and they eat in front of the television, watching a nature documentary about ants. A couple of times, Chris gets the feeling that Braxton is watching him, but whenever he glances over, his brother is studiously staring at the screen. 

There are things that need discussing, Chris knows that, and he is quite certain that Braxton knows it too. But for the moment it is as if they have decided, in unspoken agreement, to award themselves with a few of the shared mundane hours they have missed out on over the years.

Later, Chris sometimes wondered what Pop would have said, had he known what would become of his efforts to make Chris and Braxton more resilient by isolating them from the rest of the world. Chris was never entirely sure what would have bothered him more, old-fashioned straight-laced military man that he was: finding out that both of his sons grew up to become ruthless killers, or that between 1996 and 1999, they were fucking each other pretty much every night.

Then Chris turned 21 and enlisted in the military.

Braxton had his own opinions about Chris’ decision, one of them being that Chris was an idiot for signing up. But he also seemed to think that if Chris was determined to walk in their father’s footsteps and sign his life over to the U.S. Army, he should be leading a respectable life, which banging your brother apparently didn’t qualify for.

“You are still terrible at lying,” he said, the night before Chris left for basic training. “The last thing we need is you accidentally telling someone in your squad that what you are most looking forward to during leave is finally getting to drill your brother’s ass.”

Chris opened his mouth to protest, but Braxton put a finger against his lips to cut him off before he got the chance to talk.

“If you think dad beating the shit out of me for making out with a boy was bad,” he said evenly, “whatever they would do to you if they found out about this would be infinitely worse.”

Chris moved his face out of Braxton’s reach. “I can take them,” he said, angry that Braxton was trying to make decisions for him as if he wasn’t capable of making his own.

“I have no doubt,” Braxton said gently. “But I think beating your sergeant to death with a tent pole before you even finish basic training is not going to do much to help advance your career. Here,” he said and reached for something in the open drawer of his nightstand, hidden under a pile of magazines.

“This is for you.”

It was the picture of a girl, about their age – pretty, presumably, with big eyes and olive skin, smiling into the camera with lips painted a dark shade of red.

“Who is this?” Chris asked, confused.

“Sophia,” Braxton said. “Demetriádou. She’s nineteen, I think. Her father owned the bakery where we used to buy pitarakia on Milos. She’s nice.”

“I don’t remember her,” Chris said, and Braxton huffed.

“I’m not surprised,” he said. “She was trying to get your attention, but you didn’t really notice her. Look – just put her picture up over your bed in the barracks, and they’ll leave you alone.”

Chris looked down at the picture, then up at Braxton. He felt a little sick.

“Don’t give me that look,” his brother said roughly. “You are the one who had the glorious idea to enlist, you fucking dick.”

“You are mad,” Chris guessed, and Braxton choked out a strangled laugh.

“I’m –” He paused, swallowed, and when he looked up, his eyes were wet. “I don’t even know what I am. Now come and fuck me. Hard, so I’ve got something to remember you by tomorrow when you are gone.”

Chris wakes early the next morning, an old habit he’s never been able to shake. The house is entirely silent, so he assumes that he is the first awake, but when he leaves his room to make coffee, he finds the door to Braxton’s bedroom open, his brother nowhere to be seen.

There is a moment when he thinks that Braxton must have left without saying goodbye, but he quickly realizes that it is unlikely when he actually steps into the room. Braxton’s duffel bag sits in the middle of the bed, sheets tucked in neatly for anyone else’s standards but looking a little sloppy to Chris’ eyes. A fresh pair of jeans and a t-shirt are laid out on the covers, Braxton’s clothes from last night are flung over the back of the chair, and in the adjacent bathroom there’s a wet toothbrush balanced on the edge of the sink.

Chris tells himself that there is really no reason to worry, but he still goes back to his room for a handgun before he makes his way down the stairs. There are no signs of a fight, but he and Braxton both have plenty of enemies who are capable of avoiding traces, and the events of the past weeks have made him even more cautious than he was before he took the job with Living Robotics that upended his life.

In the living room, staring out through the sliding glass doors, he realizes quickly that he was perhaps overly paranoid in one sense, but woefully unprepared for the situation in other ways.

Braxton is in the pool. Or rather, exiting it just as Chris steps out of the house, and for a moment, they stare at each other, frozen in motion: Chris in his old Army t-shirt and sweatpants, the Springfield ready at his side, and Braxton, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, droplets running down his chest, wet dark curls clinging to his forehead and his neck.

Braxton looks down to the gun in Chris’ hand, then up at his face, and swallows hard.

“Are you –” He pauses, and slowly wipes the water from his eyes.

“You didn’t bring me out here to shoot me, did you?” His voice sounds weird, wrong, twisted, almost resigned, and Chris realizes too late what this must look like, him sneaking up on his unarmed brother, holding a firearm. His fingers flex around the grip of the pistol, then he switches on the safety before carefully setting the weapon down on the small garden table next to the pool.

“You were not in your room,” he manages to say, and watches all the tension drain from Braxton’s body when he finally understands.

“Oh,” he says, and laughs a little, sounding embarrassed and deeply relieved. “That’s – good. I’m good. No, I just …” he shrugs. “Well, I woke up early and the pool was right there. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“I don’t mind,” Chris says automatically, truthfully, and then, before his carefully constructed filter can catch up with his brain: “I want to have sex with you.”

Braxton blinks and wipes more water from his face.

“You … ” He laughs again, incredulously, and this is like Chris being 17 and propositioning his brother for the first time all over again. But the laughter trails off quickly, making room for a more contemplative, meaningful glance, and eventually Braxton nods once, deliberately, carefully.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice low and gravelly, and Chris can see his erection taking shape through the wet fabric of his shorts as he speaks.

“Yeah, okay. I want that too.”

If this was porn, Chris knows, he would take Braxton right there: maybe push him down to his knees, make Braxton suck his cock, or bend him over and fuck him on all fours on the slippery tiles of the patio. God knows he’s imagined similar scenarios before – over the years of their separation, he’s had plenty of time to imagine having Braxton any which way.

But in reality, it doesn’t feel right: there’s a gun on the table, they are out in the open, vulnerable and exposed, and Chris is trying to find the words to explain just how much he wants this to happen but also that there’s no way it’s going to happen right here.

As it turns out, he doesn’t need to explain at all.

“Let’s go upstairs,” Braxton says, as if he’s had the exact same thoughts, as if he’s read Chris’ mind, as if he _knows him_ , and the reality of finally getting to experience that connection again hits Chris with a force that is almost too much to bear.

Chris doesn’t know how to say any of that, so he simply nods and remains silent as they head inside and up the stairs, Braxton trailing two steps behind him as if he’s purposefully giving him space.

He keeps his distance even when they get to Chris’ bedroom, lingers in the doorway while Chris pulls his bag out from underneath the bed.

He empties the magazine before storing away the handgun, and then reaches into a different pocket to pull out the unopened package of condoms and a bottle of lube.

When he straightens and turns around, he realizes that Braxton is staring at the items in his hands, looking positively perplexed.

“You actually prepared for this?” His brother laughs in disbelief, then shakes his head.

“Never mind,” he continues, dryly amused, “of course you did.”

Chris looks away, embarrassed and stung.

“I didn’t expect anything,” he says flatly, and turns away to put the supplies down, heart in his throat.

“No, hey, wait, I’m sorry,” Braxton says quickly. He’s in the room with Chris now, approaches him, reaches out, then drops his hand again as if he isn’t sure he’s allowed to touch, and Chris understands that his brother is as nervous about this as he is.

Somehow, that makes it easier. Makes it easy to step into Braxton’s space, easy to set a hand against Braxton’s jaw, to run a careful thumb across his cheekbone and lean in.

And then they are kissing. They are kissing, and it’s been seventeen years, and they are not the same people they were back then. They are kissing, and it feels different than Chris remembers but also overwhelmingly, achingly familiar.

“Oh God,” Braxton pants against his mouth as they break apart, foreheads pressed together as their breaths mingle in the space between their lips.

“Please tell me you are going to fuck me,” he says, his pupils blown wide, and Chris kisses him again.

Having sex with Braxton after so much time is an exercise in frustration. It’s strange, and comforting, unsettling and exhilarating at once: he wants to take his time to relearn Braxton’s body and at the same time just wants to get inside of him as quickly as he can. He is so wrapped up in the sensations of feeling, smelling, tasting Braxton that he doesn’t even realize he is getting anxious until his brother wraps a firm hand around his wrist.

“Shh,” he says quietly, “it’s all good, I’m here.”

Chris closes his eyes and nods, signaling that he has understood. He lets Braxton guide his hands where he wants them, lets him claim Chris’ mouth in another kiss, and somehow the choice of handing control over to Braxton makes him feel more in control of himself again. It gives him the focus he needs to think about making it good for Braxton when he slides into him at last, and judging from the way Braxton comes apart under him, moaning, shaking, it seems like he is doing alright in that regard.

He waits for Braxton to come down from his climax before he permits himself to get lost in the feeling of Braxton’s heat around his cock, and when he comes, it is with his forehead pressed against Braxton’s shoulder blade, one hand splayed wide over his chest, the other curled around his throat.

And then it’s over, and suddenly everything feels a little bit too close, too sticky, too much. He rolls away, pulls the condom off and drops it in the cup on the nightstand he set out for this purpose, then lies flat on his back and stares at the ceiling, one foot of distance between Braxton and himself.

And that’s better, bearable, but now something is missing, and so, after a moment of hesitation, he reaches out with one hand. He rests his palm on the mattress in the space between their bodies, and Braxton takes mercy on him, linking Chris’ fingers with his own without otherwise moving closer to him.

“Good to know you are still incredibly weird about this part,” he says, his voice soft and sleepy and fond. Then, his tone shifting almost imperceptibly, he continues:

“Do you do this also with other people, or just with me?”

Chris keeps looking at the ceiling, irrationally hoping that he can get out of this without having to respond. He is quiet for long enough that Braxton props himself up on his elbow to stare down at him inquisitively, although he doesn’t let go of Chris’ hand.

“There were other people, right?” he asks, sounding worried, almost agitated, and Chris has a difficult time understanding what exactly is making Braxton so upset.

“I –“ He starts, pauses, and resists the urge to recite nursery rhymes by biting his tongue.

He thinks about the women sent to him by the occasional client as a form of thank you for his work, and the escort he once hired for a business dinner who seemed offended when he suggested that dinner conversation was all he had hired her for. He thinks about the awkward attempts at paid phone sex, and the anonymous handjobs in the men's rooms of upscale clubs, thinks about Dana whom he suspects may have tried to kiss him before falling asleep on the couch at the hotel.

“Yes. Sort of.” He clears his throat. “Not like this.”

Braxton is silent, and when Chris dares to glance at him from the corner of his eye, he looks stunned, not entirely unlike the way he had after watching Chris put a hole though Lamar Blackburn’s forehead without batting an eye.

“Why?” he finally asks, and Chris licks his lips and counts to four.

“It’s not the same with someone who doesn’t know me.” He shrugs. “And there have never been a lot of people who do.”

“But I know you?” Braxton says, and Chris isn’t sure why he makes it sound so much like a question.

“You know me,” he confirms, and then, because it’s the truth and because he knows Braxton wants to hear it: “I missed you.”

“Well, I’m here now,” Braxton says, a little shakily.

“Yes, you are,” Chris nods and lets himself close his eyes.

They didn’t see much of each other after Chris enlisted. When Chris called home for the first time after basic, tired of answering questions about the mysterious Sophia, and desperately craving the sound of his brother’s voice, his father informed him that Braxton had moved out just a couple of weeks ago, and that his new place didn’t have a landline yet.

They did spend time together once in a while in the years after, on Christmas, on birthdays, on Father’s Day, and Chris made a point of seeking out Braxton whenever he was on leave. But Chris couldn’t understand why Braxton had decided to leave the family, and Braxton didn’t offer to explain, and the rift between them, which in the past they would have bridged with their bodies, continued to grow exponentially.

Their father died at their mother’s funeral without ever knowing what had happened between his sons, and Chris was glad of it at the time: not so much because he still cared about his father’s opinion, but because he knew Pop would have found a way to make them feel like they had done something wrong – and Chris quite liked being able to believe that it had been a good thing when he was lying awake at night in his bunk, staring at the cracks in the ceiling of his prison cell.

Braxton dozes off eventually, his face buried in the pillow, one hand still stretched out on the mattress towards Chris, but Chris’ mind is going at 90mph in circles, and he knows there is no way he is going to fall asleep.

Instead he slips out of bed and goes for a swim, enjoying the way the water feels against his body, the way it cools him off, calms him down, rinses off all the stickiness and the sweat.

Once he climbs out of the pool, he makes a quick phone call, towel still slung over his neck. Then he gets dressed and puts on coffee before he starts preparing an early lunch for the two of them. 

Braxton wanders into the kitchen eventually, in boxers and a rumpled black undershirt. Chris tenses for a moment, suddenly uncertain of how to navigate them, but Braxton knows better than to touch him and interrupt his routine. He climbs onto one of the barstools at the kitchen table and rubs the sleep out of his eyes, perking up visibly when Chris puts a fresh cup of coffee in front of him.

“Huh,” he says, after taking a sip. “I think I could get used to this.”

Chris ducks his head and tries not to read too much into it.

“What are you doing after this?” he finally asks, when they are done eating and the plates are rinsed off and put away in the dishwasher, out of sight.

Braxton shrugs and stares out the window. “I am not sure,” he says. “My identity is kind of burnt.” He laughs dryly. “Getting your entire team _and_ your client killed? That’s going to tank my Yelp reviews.”

“I’m sorry,” Chris says automatically. He’s said it before. He is ready to say it again.

“Eh,” Braxton shrugs, not looking frustrated as much as he looks resigned. “It’s not like breaking kneecaps and driving people into suicide was a life’s work of passion for me.”

He clears his throat. “You know, in the beginning, I tried to do only the ones who kind of deserved it. I told myself I was doing it for the greater good.” He pauses. “But I realized that I started to sound too much like Pop in my head, and eventually I stopped coming up with explanations aside from the fact that I was getting paid.”

Chris frowns. “I don’t think I understand.”

Braxton takes another gulp of his coffee. “That’s what he kept telling us, you know,” he says, a distant look in his eyes, as if he is suddenly far away.

“That he was doing it for our own good. He tried to so hard to make us normal.” He shakes his head. “And broke us somewhere along the way.”

Chris looks down at his hands. “I was never going to be normal,” he says, because what else is there to say.

“Shut up,” Braxton says angrily and slams his mug onto the wood. “That’s bullshit, and you should know better than that.”

Chris blinks, taken aback by the emotions in Braxton’s voice. “I wasn’t –”

“What, because of this?” Braxton snaps, tapping his fingers against the side of his head. “That’s not what keeps you from having a normal life. I know that, the doctor knew that, and you should know it too. The only people who didn’t believe it were our parents, and that’s the real reason your life is so fucked up. You –”

He pauses, exhales, and Chris can’t take his eyes off him.

“You know things. You are smart. You could walk away from all this with that cute girl from accounting and have what other people think of as a normal life. Me, on the other hand, I was always going to be fucked either way – I’m just a contract killer who is in love with his bro – ”

He breaks off abruptly and grows pale.

“Shit,” he says weakly, dragging a trembling hand through his hair, then slides off his chair. “Never mind. Ignore what I said. I’ll be out of your hair in thirty minutes or so.”

And there it is, Chris thinks as he watches him leave. They spent almost every day together during the first 20 years of their lives, and slept together for three of them. Chris knows that Braxton loves him, because Braxton has said so, as recently as last week; and Chris knows, because Braxton has said so, that Braxton wants Chris to love him back.

And yet, somehow Braxton seems to believe that this confession is the one line they weren’t meant to cross. Chris isn’t entirely sure why.

For a few minutes, he stays motionless at the kitchen table and listens to Braxton slamming doors upstairs, wondering if the right thing to do is to give him space. But this is not the way the conversation was meant to go, this is not how it was supposed to end, and he is out of his seat and up the stairs before he can change his mind again.

“I need to finish,” he says, barging into his brother’s room, where Braxton is throwing clothes into his bag haphazardly.

“Finish what?” Braxton snarls, sounding defensive and hurt and a little mean. “What, like you finished Blackburn? Go ahead, I’m not going to stop you if you think it will make you feel better after what I said.”

“Our conversation,” Chris snaps, and pulls the duffel bag out of Braxton’s reach. He takes a deep breath.

“There are things I need to say.”

Braxton glowers at him, fists clenched at his side, and Chris wonders if perhaps now, despite everything, they are going to be fighting after all.

But after a long, tense moment, Braxton deflates, his shoulders slumping in defeat, and he drags a tired hand over his eyes.

“Okay, fine,” he says, sounding resigned. “I’m listening. Say what you have to say.”

Chris nods and steps back, putting distance between their bodies. He is the one lingering in the doorway this time. He pulls his phone from his pocket and speed-dials, then puts the call on speaker immediately.

“Hello there, dreamboat,” Justine’s voice comes through the line.

“Braxton is with me,” Chris responds, looking his brother in the eye.

“Hello, hot stuff,” Justine says without hesitation. Braxton raises his brows at that, but otherwise stays quiet.

“What do you have for us?” Chris asks, and focuses on the way this is exactly like talking business, so he isn’t thinking about why it feels different this time.

“Portugal. Djibouti. Taiwan,” Justine says promptly. “Shipping the trailer overseas is going to be a pain in the bum, but I did find a way. Won’t be cheap though.”

“Obviously,” Chris says. He couldn’t care less. “What about names?”

“Leon Bakst. Henry Tuke.”

Chris pauses. “Those are not mathematicians.”

“No,” she says. “I’m afraid that’s getting a little too hot. I figured we should try something else for once. They are – “

“– painters, yes, I know, it’s good.” He hesitates. “Not related?” he finally asks.

“No,” she says smoothly, as if she doesn’t know – or doesn’t care, more likely – why he might ask. “Leon is Israeli. Henry is from Maine.”

Chris allows himself to glance up at Braxton, who stares at him in shock, knuckles pressed against his mouth.

“It’s up to you,” Chris says, and tries not to let it show how much it costs him to hand over the steering wheel like this.

Braxton is silent, and Chris cannot read the expression in his eyes.

“Call me when you decide,” Justine finally says, after the pause has been dragging on for too long.

“Wait,” Braxton blurts out. He swallows. “Portugal,” he says hastily. “Let’s do Portugal.”

“Okay, dreamboat?” Justine asks, and Chris nods, even though Justine can't see it over the phone.

“Portugal it is.”

She disconnects the call without another word, and they are left to stare at each other across the bed.

“Are you sure?” Chris asks, because this is important enough to check twice.

Braxton makes a strangled noise and pushes his fingers up into his hair. “You are asking me?” he says helplessly. “You are the one who keeps running away from me.”

“I am not – ” Chris starts, then stops himself. “It wasn’t you I was running from,” he finally says.

Braxton looks like he might cry. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he says, his voice rough. “As long as you remember it too.”

“Alright,” Chris nods. “Come,” he says. “I’ll give you a tour of our trailer.”

“Our trailer?” Braxton asks, brows raised, and Chris allows himself to smile.

“Yes,” he says. “I’ve been waiting to show it to you for a while.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for all your wonderful prompts, I had a wonderful time reading your letter! I hope you like this one, dear spock!


End file.
